


Her Eyes

by Caoten



Series: Forbidden [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caoten/pseuds/Caoten
Summary: (This is Part 1 of a series, and I will continue this story, but in a different (ongoing) fanfic that I've added to the same series that I've added this fic to!)Unlucky are the ones who never find their soulmate. But even unluckier are the ones who find their soulmate to be someone they cannot have.A year into high school, Rose Lalonde realises that she is in love with her teacher, and it doesn't take her very long after that to, to both her horror and delight, realise that her teacher crush is, in fact, her cosmically chosen soulmate.Inspired by a soulmate AU where your eyes glow when your soulmate is thinking about you: http://lgbtqwritingprompts.tumblr.com/post/180651057245/a-soulmate-au-where-a-persons-eyes-glow-when





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Soulmate"  
> /ˈsəʊlmeɪt/  
> (noun)  
> -A person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose, you are my favourite lesbian. And you will get a soulmate if it so kills me.

“Rose? Do you think he might be right?”

“That he might be right about what?” you respond, not looking up from the black nail polish you’re applying to your nails.

Aradia continues: “That soulmates is nothing but a lie we tell ourselves to keep looking for a true love that never has and never will exist?” She has been listening to an album that you showed her, and it seems like the lead singer’s vocals have gotten to her. It’s one of your favourite groups; they mix an electronic sound with classical orchestral instruments, and their two vocalists were previously the singers of two of your and Aradia’s favourite metal bands. Needless to say, the two of you are the only ones in your grade who understand their music.

You sigh dramatically. “The probability that your soulmate and yourself would receive the luxury of being born in the same century is close to null.”

Aradia thinks about it for a minute. “But your mom found her soulmate and…” she trails off when you look up to meet her eyes.

You don’t respond immediately, but instead first remove a fishnet sock from your foot and dip the delicate brush into the polish bottle a couple of times. “One woman finding true love doesn’t mean that the system is not erroneous,” you say as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. In reality, it’s something you read on an online poetry forum. “And who says true love is something to be sought after, anyway?”

Aradia nods as she pulls her nightgown down over her head, her eyes clouded with thoughts. Aradia is the kind of person who only focuses on one thing at a time; if she listens to a new song, the lyrics will completely consume her mind, and if she finds a new interest in a book, it’s all she will talk about. “Who needs boys anyways?” she finally states.

You smile at her, and screw the nail polish bottle’s lid shut. “Who needs boys anyway,” you agree.

Some parents raised their children with stories of soulmates. In all bookstores, all libraries, in all self-published corners of the Internet, the shelves are filled, from floor to ceiling, with stories of princes and princesses locking eyes and knowing that the other one is ‘the one’. Their _soulmate_.

‘Soulmates’ was _the thing_ when you were in kindergarten and elementary school. Even through middle school, some of the girls still spent the school breaks staring deep into their handheld mirrors, or asking someone to look at their eyes to see if they glowed when they spoke to the boy they liked.

Your mom never read those stories to you, nor did you like hearing about them. Your mom rarely read to you at all, but when she did, it was often from her own novels — which, to put it lightly, didn’t follow the normal ‘girl meets boy’ trope. So, because of your mother’s chronic obsession with adventurous wizards and magic, before you began going to school with other children, you had barely even _heard_ of ‘soulmates’.

And it didn’t become _reality_ before your mom met your new neighbour.

He knocked on your door, three strong, professional knocks. You were in your room, on the floor, tying Barbie dolls to the metal frame of your bed. Really, you knew that you were too old to play with dolls, but there was something irreplaceable about the feeling of looking at their helpless faces begging you to release them from their prison.

The neighbour knocked on your door _again_ , and then you realised that he, whoever he was, wasn’t going to give up. You were dealing with a professional. And later, you’d find, a _businessman_.

Your mom was probably in her chambers, enjoying a glass of wine with a hearty laugh while reading one of the novels that her online friends would send her occasionally; the wizard fiction that you were under _no circumstances_ allowed to read.

You had, of course, read them all.

With a deep, exasperated sigh, you realised that you’d have to take the matter into your own hands.

You snuck up to the door, slowly and quietly, pressed up against the wall. Not because you had to, but because a lady in this day and age must find pleasure in the trivial moments of life.

The man on the other side looked exactly like you’d imagine a professional door knocker like him would. He was wearing a bleak fedora and newly pressed pants, and in his arms he held out a beautifully decorated cake like a peace offering. Behind him, a young boy your age with dark hair and eyeglasses was standing awkwardly. You barely allowed the man to open his smiling, professional mouth before you turned around to go get your mother.

That was when it happened, of course. When your mom a few minutes later turned the corner to become visible from where the man and his son were standing in your apartment’s front door, just a little unstable on her high-heeled feet, her hand tensed in your supporting hand, and looking up into her face, her previously pearly grey eyes were shimmered-over with the clearest shade of pink.

And that was how you and your mom got to know the Egbert family.

It didn’t take long before Mr. Egbert and your mom had gone out on a couple of dates together, and more and more often, you and John — and his foster sister Jade — reported to each other that your respective parents’ eyes shone with their new colours almost constantly, even when they were apart.

With the small exception when your mom was reading her novels. Then, she only had eyes for Zazzerpan the Learned.

That was how ‘soulmates’ worked. And works — even though you don’t care much about them, it doesn’t make them go away. Quite the opposite, it has always seemed to you. It seems like the less you care about it, the more people try to _make_ you care about it. In any way possible.

In school you learned the more scientific model of how _soulmating_ works: All humans are born with grey eyes, ranging from pearly white to dull near-black, and they only reveal their true colour when your soulmate is thinking of you. When your soulmate is thinking of you, your eyes will adopt a colourful, shining glow — which can be quite useful when trying to find your way through dark rooms or empty roads at night — and hopefully, theirs will glow when you are thinking of _them_.

 _Your_ eyes are still grey — as is almost everyone’s your age. Your eyes are a light grey colour with ghostly clouded areas floating through them, depending on the light. You quite like your eyes, and, no matter what all your classmates and teachers have ever said, you don’t want them to be any other way.


	2. Empty Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First crushes are harder for some people.

If you got only one wish, it would be for your eyes to change colour.

Not because everyone else’s have, no, far from it. Most people don’t find their soulmate before they’re far into adulthood, if ever.

You want that special light of love to light behind your eyes because you _know_ who your soulmate is, you have seen _her_ eyes change their colour many times. You rarely think about much else, other than her. But your eyes never change. They are still the same dull, boring _grey_ that you were born with, the same grey that every lonely person on Earth has.

 _She_ never thinks of _you_.

When you began going to high school, you had never thought that you would meet the love of your life there. You still don’t know each other, at least not in the way that you yearn for, but her eyes have said everything you need to know. Everything you need to know to lie awake for hours at night thinking of how beautifully green they turn when you look at her in class, in the corridors, wherever you might catch a glimpse of her.

It did take you a long time to realise that it was because of _you_ that her eyes lit up, though. More than a year, to be exact.

Everyone in school was talking about her and her eyes. Which in all students’ minds equaled ‘her and her _boyfriend’_.

“Ms. Maryam must have the _sweetest_ boyfriend in the _whole_ world!”

“I wish my future husband will think of me as much as Ms. Maryam’s boyfriend thinks of her!”

“She’s so beautiful, it’s no wonder he loves her so much!”

That word. _He._

The fiction that your soulmate has a loving boyfriend, if not a husband, quickly became an accepted truth during your sophomore year of high school, which, coincidentally, was the year when you developed a crush on your biology teacher.

What changes everything is what your cousin tells you during a school lunch as the year is nearing Christmas break in your third year:

“Uhm, sis?”

You look up at Dave who is sitting opposite of you at the plastic cafeteria table. “Yes, brother?”

Throughout your entire lives, Dave has lived with his bro — who you really know is his dad, thus your uncle — two stories up in the same apartment building as you do with your mom, and you two have always known each other as siblings.

Dave takes another forkful of the cafeteria food before he responds, and you are not sure whether he is trying to postpone answering what he started, or if he just wants to answer you with as much food in his mouth as possible, as though he doesn’t even care. As he answers, it seems to be the latter:

“Your eyes,” he begins — and you can’t help but reach up to touch them — “they’re purple.” He puts down the fork with a clash and pushes his plate to the side, almost hastily putting his shades on over his face. “Your eyes are purple, also they’re blinding me.”

In panicking shock, looking into the palms of your hands, you can see small spots of purple-toned lights playing across your skin. You quickly divert your gaze, but you don’t dare to close your eyelids, in fear of causing your eyes to turn back to their previous, grey colour. Their loveless, _lifeless_ colour.

“Are they still shining?” you ask, your voice trembling.

“Yup, sure are,” Dave responds, and even though he tries to play it off, as though his cousin’s eyes lighting up _in the soulmate way_ is an everyday walk in the park, he can’t seem to stop staring at them.

“Is… Is anyone looking at me?” you ask slowly, carefully, as though speaking too loud or too fast could break the magic. You have seen Ms. Maryam eat in the lunch cafeteria once or twice before. Maybe she is coming to talk to you? Maybe she wants to sit at your table and talk about the essay you just handed in last week.

Helpfully, Dave spins his body around an entire turn in his seat to look for any secret admirers. He brings back grim news: “Nope. Sorry, Lalonde.”

You exhale, letting out all the air you didn’t even know you were holding, and bury your face in your hands. _Of course not._

Once you fell in love with Ms. Maryam, you realised that your eyes would never turn, at least not permanently. Realising that Ms. Maryam’s eyes only light up when you are looking at her, or thinking of her, you also realised that you could never have her, that you could never be with your soulmate.

And your teacher will of course never think of you other than when talking to you in class or grading your homework, thus you always treasure those few moments of the week, when you know that your eyes are gleaming with light that has been awoken by her thoughts. Sadly, you soon also realised that you’d have to take safety measures to avoid her discovering your secret, which is why you always wear a pair of perfectly round, darkly tinted glasses to all of her classes.

Throughout your teenage years, you have read so many stories and online forum threads about people finding out that their soulmate is someone whom they cannot have, for geographical, social, or legal reasons. Because of _soulmates_ , ‘forbidden love’ might just be the most popular topic in all known fiction.

You bend down to the floor where you have your small, leather backpack leaning against a table leg. You quickly ruffle through it, until your hand finds your pair of glasses. Your only security. With shaking fingers, you put them on. This is the first time someone has noticed, or at least pointed out, your eyes glowing.

Dave is looking at you, his lips pursed in a grimace of confusion. He tilts his head to the side. “Why d’you even have those glasses, Rose?”

You look at him, feeling like a hunted — and, unfortunately, _captured_ — animal. “What about me wearing them? Why are you always wearing _yours_?”

To your bafflement, he reaches up to his face and removes his glasses, holding them in one hand on the table. His clearly grey eyes try to meet your hidden ones. “That’s the thing. I’m _always_ wearing them. It’s like, the Strider _brand_ . You’re only wearing yours…” he trails off, his mind browsing through its memory folders. “...In Ms. Maryam’s classes.” He locks his eyes with yours. If only they were another colour, they wouldn’t feel so _steeling_.

You don’t want Dave to realise the truth. You don’t doubt that Dave would ceremoniously high five you for scoring it with a hot teacher, but you are not so sure if he would congratulate you on being in love with a _woman_. All the times when Dave has made obnoxious comments about women making out or smacking John on the ass followed by a grinning ‘no homo’ are burning hot and clear in your mind.

To your surprise, and confusingly enough, both disappointment and relief, Dave lets the subject drop. Your pulse is still high and you can hear your blood course through your ears as the two of you stand up to get out of the lunch hall and go to your third period classes as though nothing had happened.

In the end, that experience turned out to be something of a wakeup call for you. The panic that you had felt made it clear to you that you were in no way ready to tell anyone about your soulmate or interest in Ms. Maryam. But the disappointment of Dave not pushing forward and against your will extricating the secrets that you have been carrying within for so very long made it even _more_ clear to you that you would not be able to keep it all inside for much longer without lastly doing _something_ about it.

You have read many novels and even scientific journals about the power of the soulmate bond, but it wasn’t before that fateful event in front of Dave that you realised that it truly was impossible to not act on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading so far! This is something I made up in a day (God, it's holy shit 5am) but I'm excited to work on this! Hope you enjoy it so far, and will continue to enjoy what I have in store!  
> (Kudos/comments are always deeply, deeply appreciated)


	3. Emeralds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem with being in love with your teacher is that you have to see her every day.

When you were about to start your junior year of high school, you went down to town on your own. The year before, and every year before that and before that, you have always brought either your mom, John, or Dave for back-to-school shopping. But this year, you wanted to be in the stores on your own.

The reason was what you were carrying in your plastic bag down the streets. Next to purple ballpoint pens and spiral notebooks lay an unopened package with green ink pens. Five pens, each a different hue of green.

In the end, they didn’t even come close to being able to capture what Ms. Maryam truly looks like, but you still use them to colour all the eyes covering the pages of your school notebooks.

You always start with the deeper colours, the darkest green. Even when grey, Ms. Maryam’s eyes might be the darkest coloured eyes you have ever seen. You continue to scrawl across the paper, adding in the other greens to turn into a beautiful rainbow. However, your favourite part about Ms. Maryam’s eyes, both on paper and in real life, is the light. To anyone who has ever seen eyes affected by a soulmate’s thoughts, it comes as no strange surprise that shimmered-over eyes can make a person fall in love in a matter of seconds.

“Is that anime?”

You are pulled out of your daydream by Aradia’s friend, Sollux, who is trying to snatch your notebook from you. With reflexes you didn’t even know you had, you pull it back over the school laboratory desk.

“Let go,” you hiss under your breath.

And he does, but shows off his gums in that dumb-looking smirk of his.

Aradia leans over him to get closer to you. “Rose,” she whispers, and Sollux leans as far back in his chair as he can to give his friend space. Where Sollux is an awful whisperer, you can barely hear Aradia. You guess they are equally bad at it, but on opposite ends of the spectrum.

“What?” you whisper back.

“Where have you seen green eyes?”

You close your lips and look up at her, meet her eyes. She looks earnest and curious, but the greyness of her eyes only reminds you of where you are. And of where you _have_ seen green eyes. “Nowhere in particular,” you answer.

You feel their eyes on you, and you cannot do anything but wait for the bomb to drop.

“The only person with green eyes I’ve seen,” Sollux declares, “is Ms. Maryam.”

Hearing his words, it feels like a death sentence.

“Oh, she does have green eyes sometimes, doesn’t she?” you force out from your lips, making your tongue and windpipe and teeth cooperate. “Her boyfriend must be sweet.”

You want to die.

While Aradia and Sollux are nodding their heads in agreement, you quickly scramble to flip your notebook over and push your green pens back into your bag. You make sure to secure the sunglasses that are sitting perched high up on the bridge of your nose.

Ms. Maryam has a calm about her, a stillness that you fell for the very first time you met her. She smiles often, but she never smiles much. She is reserved, and her heavy eyelids and elegant makeup all together show that she is a mature woman, even though she is not yet very old.

In all of her photos, she has that very same air around her, and that knowing, casually smiling look that makes you feel weak just thinking about it.

It’s late, but some nights you cannot sleep, no matter how much you try. Instead, you spend the nightly hours writing or drawing, one time you even knitted an entire scarf. But sometimes, like tonight, when you are certain that your Mom is out cold, you type in Ms. Maryam’s username in the Instagram search bar.

Seeing her name, her _full_ name — _Kanaya_ Maryam, 24 — in her bio, followed by a little sun and a lipstick emoji, a warm fluttering spreads through your chest. You never really understood why people said the butterflies are in the stomach, when the feeling so clearly spreads from your heart.

Ms. Maryam isn’t a very active user, and she seems to mostly post when she is out with friends. Scrolling through her page, you have seen that almost all of her posts are in sets of two pictures; one a selfie, and one a picture of food or of some building that she has visited.

She is often out to town with Ms. Serket — your P.E. teacher, a woman whom you would describe as ‘a psychopathic sadist who finds joy in giving the strongest boys the hardest balls on the court during killer ball’ — and you have a suspicion that it is Ms. Serket who encourages Ms. Maryam to post on Instagram. While Ms. Serket gives you a funny feeling in your stomach, especially when you scroll past a picture of her posing next to Ms. Maryam, you are thankful that someone is making Ms. Maryam upload more pictures of her face to the Internet.

You do feel a little bit guilty though, for scrolling through her Instagram when she definitely is not aware of it. But so late at night, bundled up in your blankets up to cover your chin and the only light source being the blue light of your phone screen, it barely even feels like you are in the same world as during the day, at school, where your actions have real consequences.

“ _Miss Lalonde?_ ” You hear the voice as though it comes from far away, and you battle to gain the high-ground of your consciousness and snap back into reality.

“Miss Lalonde?” Ms. Maryam repeats, her frame towering over your desk but a foot away from you.

As soon as you realise what is happening, that your soulmate is trying to talk to you, your hand flies up to your face to control that you are still wearing your sunglasses. You turn to Ms. Maryam. “Yes, Ma’am?” you stutter, your voice coming out thick and hasted. Shyly, you raise your chin to meet her eyes.

And she’s as beautiful as she ever was. One lock of dark hair has fallen down from its correct place and hangs lazily against her forehead. Her eyes burn dark green.

“Have you completed the assignment? Our lesson is almost over,” Ms. Maryam says, and puts a strand of non-existing hair back behind her ear, an old habit.

“Yes, I have. Let me just find…” you say, and start to dig through your bag, only to realise that you put your work in your folder on the desk. Embarrassed, you give it to her, and she smiles at you and makes her leave.

“Her eyes really _are_ like emeralds,” you hear Aradia sigh next to you, but you can barely hear the world around you for the loud pulse pounding in your ears.

You had almost forgotten about the assignment, it barely even feels like you are in a classroom when Ms. Maryam is around. As soon as you see her green eyes, you forget about everything else. In the beginning of your infatuation, you were considering pretending to be dumb, just trying to see if you could get extra tutoring in biology, alone with Ms. Maryam. But you almost immediately abandoned that line of thought, because you felt pretty confident that a special needs student would never catch Ms. Maryam’s eye. Instead, you decided to excel in her class, sometimes at the expense of other classes.

You still cannot concentrate in her class to save your life though, so the situation leaves you no other choice than to complete all your schoolwork at home, before the lessons.

You barely even notice when the school bell rings, and all your classmates start packing down their books and pencils into their bags.

“Rose, whatcha doing still on your ass?” Sollux asks and prods your cheek with one of his skinny fingers.

You jolt, and look around you. It’s just you, two other students who are almost at the door, and Ms. Maryam still left in the room. She smiles at you, and you feel your face grow hot. You thank all known and unknown gods for your heavy layer of foundation.

“Are you coming?” Aradia smiles at you, and swings her bag up over her shoulder.

Your brain is blank for a moment, as it tries to reboot, but then you quickly stand up. “Yeah, but you can leave. I can meet you in the cafeteria when I’m done.”

Aradia looks at you, but Sollux nods his head appreciatively, and pushes your friend out of the classroom door.

As the door closes behind them, the room is left in silence. Not a necessarily heavy or awkward silence, but not a comfortable one either. You zip your bag closed and secure it with the magnet clasp before you look up at Ms. Maryam.

She sits in her chair behind her desk, still with her peaceful, warm smile, but with one eyebrow cocked.

“I thought I would help you clean up,” you mumble and meet her eye.

She smiles at you, and before she stands up, you almost feel as though you are about to faint. Her eyes are so very green, and they are only looking at you.

She walks around the desk.

You swallow.

“That is very nice of you, Miss Lalonde.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I love Vriska. And that's the happs on that.
> 
> Thank you for reading I hope you liked this chapter (and also the rest)!  
> And thank you, all of y'all who left kudos and comments etc. on the previous chapters! Really means the world...!


	4. Secret Pictures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes things backfire, and sometimes, they do not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I feel dumbass lesbianism in this Chili's tonight.

Minutes and hours go by, and so do days and weeks. Your mom has entered another craze, you can tell, because when you try to sneak a few, the liquor cabinet is empty; and to no surprise, you find the door to your mom’s study to be locked. Growing older, you have realised it is the way in which she is able to support the two of you, locking herself up for a week or two when she enters one of her _moods,_ and then exit with a new piece of decadent wizard literature to fill the shelves of various niche bookstores.

But your mother’s creative process also leaves you alone, the apartment unsupervised and your thoughts and indulgences left to roam freely. Though, most of the time, you simply spend hours pent up in front of the mirror.

When you invited Aradia over for a sleepover, you remembered your drawings and your bad poetry last minute. You prefer to call it bad, even in your private thoughts, just so nobody looks too closely at what it is you’re actually writing about. It had all been strewn out in your room, green ink and circling, cursive _K’_ s, and even though you pride yourself on your way with words, you aren’t a very good liar.

It has been more than a year since you fell in love with Ms. Maryam, since you realised that the universe was playing a cruel joke on the both of you. Yet you haven’t really talked to her, not _actually_ talked to her, as anything more than teacher and student. But against your better judgement, you try to be close to her, just for short moments, staying after class, helping her clean up, and email her questions that your friends have that you could easily answer yourself.

“Miss Lalonde, would you mind staying here with me now, after class?”

You freeze in the doorframe, and Sollux turns his head to look back at you, quietly groaning at you for always making all of you late for lunch after your biology lessons. He wants to hurry to meet up with Dave and Equius, but he doesn’t want to leave Aradia behind. And he knows that Aradia will wait for you.

“Of course not, Ma’am,” you answer, and shoot Sollux a look, telling him to just stay with Aradia and leave you alone.

As you close the door after Sollux, your mind is racing. There is no reason for Ms. Maryam to need you to stay; you have handed in all homework and the next assignment is still far away. And, regrettably, she isn’t your homeroom teacher. Neither have you had any personal conversations with her. And she doesn’t know what is going on at home.

Your mind comes up blank, you can’t think of anything.

After quickly controlling that your glasses are in place, you turn around with what you hope is a ‘sweet smile’. And Ms. Maryam is smiling back. and she’s beautiful. She’s wearing a shade of lipstick that is maybe one shade darker than what the PTA finds professional, and her hair is neatly placed behind her ear. As soon as you entered the classroom earlier, you noticed that she has gotten a haircut during the weekend, and the buzzed hair at the back of her neck looks perfect to run your hand over.

“Sit with me,” she says, and directs you to the chair that is placed next to hers, behind the teacher’s desk.

You mumble “thank you,” and smooth out your skirt when you sit down. You feel your thighs begin to stick together. You look up at her, and you decide to take a risk:

“You look lovely today, Ms. Maryam.” For the only time in your life, you wish you had Dave’s big shades instead of your small plastic circles to cover your face.

Ms. Maryam’s lips part open as to say something back, but she closes them again and clears her throat. Ignoring your remark, as you should have done as soon as it appeared in your mind. Instead, she readjusts in her chair, and carefully moves a pile of papers a few centimetres on her desk.

“You see… Rose,” she hesitates before saying your first name and it makes a shrill run up your neck, “...Miss Lalonde, Ms. Serket made me aware that you liked a picture of mine.”

_Oh no._

“...on my _personal_ Instagram account, Miss Lalonde.”

You watch Ms. Maryam’s clear green eyes, although now stern and furrowed, as you feel all the excessive blood that has travelled to your face, and then some, drain from it. Your fingertips start to tingle, but beyond that, you feel numb and cold. You _cannot_ believe that you would make such a blunder.

You know the picture, of course you do. It’s one from this summer, when Ms. Maryam and Ms. Serket had gone out to some pier somewhere. It’s Ms. Serket who has taken the picture, and behind her shoulder, Ms. Maryam stands in a pretty, long summer dress. The wind has caught her hair.

“Miss Lalonde?” Ms. Maryam interrupts your thoughts and your eyes snap up to meet hers, albeit concealed. “It is important to me, and to the principal and to all the other teachers, Ms. Serket as well, that my professional life and my personal life are kept seperate. You do understand, don't you?”

Your mind is screaming. Nothing coherent, just primal screaming reduced to its simplest form, trapped inside your skull. Ms. Maryam is looking at you, awaiting your affirmative response, and when she tips her head, a strand of black hair falls out from her otherwise neatly put-together hairdo. It taps her cheek lightly and bounces.

“Yes, Ms. Maryam,” you begin, and then add, “it must have been an accident.”

She smiles at you, and you are certain that your heart makes a double skip. Her eyes are burning into you so very green, and it’s difficult to focus on much else when they seem to glow hotter and hotter the harder you try to stop thinking about them. It’s near wondrous that she doesn’t feel their heat in her face, or notice their jade reflection off your sunglasses.

She then lets out a little sigh, and it both makes your heart flutter and your neck grow hot. “Rose, I don't think what you have done is wrong, although it does pique my interest somewhat, how you came across my profile. But I won't make you answer to that today.”

You don’t move, but your heart rate slows from that. The initial panic and the anxiety of being caught redhanded has ebbed away, but you would be a liar if you claimed that you still aren’t dying from nerves. It is just you and her, and her eyes don’t evade yours for even a second. And she’s so close. Dave would lose his mind if he knew that you were in this situation with your hot biology teacher.

Your eyes are locked.

You don’t want to break the magic, but more seconds than what you’d expect have passed in silence. Only the classroom clocks ticks away during your eye contact. Then Ms. Maryam starts suddenly, and begins to flutter her eyelids as to shake of some sort of daze.

“That will be all, Miss Lalonde,” she says and gives you a warm, but closed off smile. “Go find your friends now, I have held you for too long.”

In your head, something screams that you’d want nothing more than for her to hold you, even just your hand, but instead you return her smile. “Thank you, Ma’am, I love seeing you- I mean it was nice seeing you- talking,” you stumble and quicken your leave, standing up to get out. She begins to stand up as well but then awkwardly sits down again.

When you are at the door, ready to leave before you melt from embarrassment and excitement, she calls your name:

“And Rose?” You turn around. “Please keep my account to yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks for reading! Don't date your teachers!


	5. At Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's more stressful; writing adult emails or writing love letters?

After that conversation with Ms. Maryam in her classroom, you did what she had asked you to. You went and found your friends, already sitting in the cafeteria; Dave repeatedly losing to Equius at armwrestling, Sollux angrily eating his food, making a point of ignoring their ridiculousness, and Aradia laughing at all of them.

You ate that lunch with them in silence, but none of them asked you if something was wrong. And nothing was wrong. But you wanted to tell them all so badly, what is going on with you, what you had just experienced, what Ms. Maryam had told you when you two were alone and how looking into her green eyes with your purple makes you feel.

You want to tell Aradia when she sleeps over at your apartment the next time when your mom gets crazy, and show her your poetry and your drawings of Ms. Maryam, without having to hide how much you love her. But you’re not able, because Aradia only ever talks about Sollux or the boys in your bands or the hot new lead in a movie that you are going to see together.

And you want to tell Dave, even though you have no reason to tell him about your crushes, and he has never told you about his. But you want him to know, that you are special. That you have found your soulmate, and how much it pains you everytime you see her, _her_ , and that _she_ doesn’t know. But you want to tell Dave, and you want Sollux and Equius and John and Jade to know too, and their friends Karkat and Terezi and Feferi and Nepeta. Although you have no reason to tell most of them. But it doesn’t matter, because you cannot even tell your closest friend that you are in love with a woman.

You have troubles sleeping after that forenoon when you spoke with Ms. Maryam. You lie in your bed in the dark, on your back with your arms along your sides or your hands folded over your chest, because that is what you do when you cannot sleep and you have accepted that you cannot sleep. Instead you stare up at the ceiling that is naturally white, but appears dark and blue-grey in the night, and when you get bored of the ceiling, you stare at your possessions strewn across the room, and note how different they look when your eyes cannot see them properly.

But it is not just feelings of angst that keep you awake, thinking of how none of your friends know your involuntarily most intimate secret, and therefore don’t actually know _you_. You also think of Ms. Maryam, and you look at, twist and turn, and examine the words that she said to you, and you blush deeply in the dark.

She didn’t make you promise to not go on her account. She just told you to not give it to anyone else, just so no one knows that she lets you have it. And she hasn’t blocked you either.

She told you that you have piqued her interest. And that she would make you tell her how you came across her username later, another time. A promise of letting you in another time, just not now.

It is all a secret that she and you share, one of two secrets that you cannot get out of your head, but it’s the one you don’t have anything against keeping. It feels special. You have made advances, although very small, and she hasn’t pushed you away. Some nights, you even dare to fantasise and imagine, that you and she could have something before graduation, and then after graduation, it could be you who post a picture of the two of you at a pier in summer, the wind catching her hair.

You are certain that Ms. Serket is a lesbian, that she is like you. You have found her profile as well, through Ms. Maryam’s, and she is the organiser of many events for _‘Queers4Sport’_. You sometimes wonder, if that is why Ms. Maryam and she appear to be so close in school, that they know each other more intimately than they let on. And those thoughts feel like you have eaten rocks and jumped off a bridge, sinking through icing cold waters. Even though someone is your soulmate, you are not entitled to be in a relationship with them.

Despite that, even despite the fact that there really is no proof that your biology teacher and your P.E. teacher are involved with each other, you can’t help the feeling that arises inside you when you see Ms. Serket at school. The feeling of your ribs tying together over your heart and lungs and acid forcing its way up into your pharynx and nose.

It’s not that you’re just jealous. Because you admit that you are jealous. You are jealous when Ms. Maryam brings Ms. Serket a cup of black coffee for their shared break, and you are jealous when Ms. Serket picks up Ms. Maryam to drive her home after work. You are jealous when Ms. Serket plays music during class that you know Ms. Maryam likes, and you are jealous when a picture of Ms. Serket popping open a bottle of wine together with Ms. Maryam appears on your Instagram feed.

You are also scared. Because everyone _loathes_ Ms. Serket. She’s a sadist, and she is _proud_ of it. Her students are no strangers to collective punishments, even when there really is nothing to get punished for. It is not clear why she does it, but some days she simply seems to be in a slightly better mood than during others. And that scares you. Because that is the kind of person who Ms. Maryam is attracted to. And that is the kind of human you are. In the entire school, it is just you and Ms. Serket. And she’s a monster.

One night, you can hear your mom crying through the wall connecting your bedrooms. She sent in her new draft the day before; you helped her walk with it to her editor’s office. But now the cycle repeats, and you have to listen to your mother’s tearing sobs through the thin plaster wall. So you cannot sleep. You wish she would stop, but you know that she has it worse than you.

On your phone, you see that Ms. Maryam has been to another outing with Ms. Serket. The picture is taken outdoors and it’s dark, only the yellow light of the restaurant lighting showing their smiling faces. Ms. Serket’s got a steadfast grip of Ms. Maryam’s naked upper arm, and Ms. Maryam only smiles pleasantly into the camera, her upper eyelids covered in green glitter. In their hands are dainty glasses of bubbling liquid, some of it trailing down Ms. Serket’s hand, most likely from bringing out a toast right before the photo was taken.

You smile into your comforter, pulled up past your chin, and zoom in on Ms. Maryam’s face. Her makeup is perfect, and you catch your breath when you see that her eyes are flashing green in the grainy photo. Ms. Serket’s are a light, nearly white grey. You open the comment section and type:

_“Are you celebrating? I hope you are enjoying your evening. Are you familiar with the Danish brand ‘Små Sure’?”_

You then throw your phone against the wall. And regret it immediately when your mom’s quiet sobbing comes to a halt.

A few minutes later your phone screen lights up but you can’t be bothered to look at it. You know that it is your mom apologising for things that aren’t her fault and things that she wouldn’t even feel bad about if you weren’t such an awful daughter. Acting out. Keeping her out.

The next morning when you wake up, you have received two new messages. First, the expected one from your mother, and then, an email notification:

_‘Good morning,_

_Miss Lalonde, please meet me before the morning class today. I will leave my door unlocked._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Dr. Kanaya Maryam, biology high school teacher, PhD.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh? Tear bipolar Roxy from my cold, dead hands.  
> Hope you like the story and reading it! Thanks so much for the kudos and love! big xoxo.


	6. One Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is all it takes, is it not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure to read the notes at the end when you're done with reading this chapter!

You drive to school that morning. You usually don’t, because you don’t like the smell of cigarettes and boys in the school parking lot. The air there is probably more sweat and tar than oxygen at this point. But you would be late to meeting Ms. Maryam if you walked like you usually do, and your mom is in no condition to drive anywhere, neither you nor herself.

_ Meeting Ms. Maryam. _

You don’t think you have ever been this nervous before, not in the seventeen years during which you have been alive on this Earth. You could barely get down your mug of tea in the morning. Instead, you spent those extra minutes in front of your vanity mirror, applying just a small bit of extra glittering highlighter, the kind that makes Instagram models look like they are either made of metal or just really sweaty, but you think that you can pull it off. The secret is to not use too much, or to use way more than is needed.

You put on your sunglasses before you get out of the car, and you are starting to realise why Dave are so fond of his. The boys don’t bother you when you walk past, and the teachers and early students who meet you in the corridors greet you and move on, not noticing the panic seeping through your eye sockets or the sweat trying to break free from under your foundation and powder. Behind sunglasses, you become anonymous, but not unnoticed.

On a few sporadic occasions throughout your teenage years, it has felt like you’ve had your head lost in clouds. But not in a romantic way. Rather in a cold, empty way that you have learned to be called ‘dissociation’, a strange state in which you cannot feel your body and your thoughts feel like they are moving through thick glass. Dave has told you that your uncle experiences it as well, that he can stop in the middle of a motion, or lie in bed for several hours, simply staring up into nowhere. It used to scare Dave when he was little, but as it turns out, your entire family tree is full of eccentric maniacs and, as Dave put it,  _ ‘nutjobs’ _ , and now the two of you are beginning to join the ranks.

You are barely aware of the skin on your hand when your knuckles meet the surface of the painted public school door. With the knocking, you suddenly become hyperaware of your surroundings as the loud noise echoes against the door and your brain, and your heart picks up speed. Your stomach drops.

There is no answer, but you sense that she is inside. So you press down the door handle, and carefully, almost afraid of it slamming shut in your face before you’ve had the chance of getting inside, you open it.

Ms. Maryam is sitting in her chair, waiting for you behind her desk, looking down at a bundle of papers with a purple ballpoint pen ready in her slim hand. Her nails are freshly painted black, and they match her suit perfectly.

She looks up to meet your eye, and they gleam a jade green. But she isn’t smiling.

“Please sit down, Miss Lalonde.”

So you do. And you try to find a way to sit that will make the glitter in your makeup catch the light of the cheap fluorescent lamps in the ceiling.

She puts away the papers and her pen, in just the same way she did the last time when you were alone with her, and you stop breathing when you remember the situation. You are once again alone with Ms. Maryam, and she is as beautiful as ever, if not more.

She is showing barely any skin, but her suit is clearly tailored to suit her female body. She is rather tall, and it wouldn’t surprise you if she needs all her clothing personally tailored.

“Miss Lalonde,” she begins, but scrunches up her face as to rewind the conversation and start over from the beginning. “Miss Lalonde, do you know why I emailed you this morning?”

Before you have the chance to respond, she raises a hand, and her sleeve slips down to reveal her thin wrist as she waves your answer away. “It doesn't matter, really,” she says. She takes a second to stare at the ceiling before her eyes settle back down on you. She looks bothered. “I need you to tell me that you know that you and I are not friends.”

She says it quickly, as if not to hurt you. But it still does, and it still will. Later, when you remember her pained face and are finally able to see it all so clearly laid out in front of you, like spots in time connecting all your mistakes and bad calls like a constellation to finally lead up to this exact moment. And you swallow.

“Rose,” she says, “I thought that you agreed to stay out of my private life.”

So you did misunderstand her. Of course you did, what she had said hadn’t been very ambiguous to begin with at all. But does she really have to say your name like that?

_ I thought you let me in. _

She sighs, but now, finally, a small smile touches her lips again. A comforting smile, trying to squeeze through the awkward situation. You aren’t sure if it helps or makes everything worse. “I don't mean to make you feel like you cannot talk to me, Rose, I hope that you don't misunderstand me. It is just that our relationship begins and ends here in this room, between these four walls.”

You feel your face heat up, and even though you had intended to finally answer her, those last words make your tongue go limp. You had a whole response planned out, finally accepting defeat, or at least visibly apologising for the situation. But now you are no longer as sure of what her intentions are.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you understand, Miss Lalonde,” she says, but unless the state of your brain is the same as you feel that it is, Ms. Maryam looks  _ unsure _ . She is rubbing her hands together in her lap, and her eyes seem to desperately seek something in your face.

And that is when it happens.

Ms. Maryam leans forward — your breath hitches, and everything seems to pass in slow motion — and your concealed eyes widen as her hand brushes against your cheek. It only takes a second, but as soon as it has passed, you know that that single second will come to change both of your lives forever. Ms. Maryam reaches up to remove your glasses, probably wanting to see your eyes when you promise to never talk to her again and to write off everything that is more than professional acquaintanceship between you.

A warmth spreads through your body, it begins in your lower abdomen and seeps through your heart and your lungs. It’s impossible to breathe as the pleasant feeling makes its way through your arms and your throat, and of course you know where it will end.

Your eyes are melted in place, stuck in position, and they slowly fill up with the warmth that has travelled from your heart. You can see their purple light reflect in Ms. Maryam’s, and her eyes are open wide and her lips hang parted. The colour has risen in her face, and you know that so has it in yours, and through it all you are cosmically locked together only through your newly coloured eyes. And she has never been as beautiful as she is in this exact moment.

Your glasses fall to the floor, and clattering, they bounce away to land under one of the classroom desks. The sound sounds comically colloquial in the silence.

The sound that Ms. Maryam makes, the moaning groan of shrill horror that escapes her mouth, you feel like it will haunt you forever, and its vibrations hit you in the heart as though it was a real dagger, tearing your chest open. She is pale, and her usually so plump and pretty lips are trembling. It is heartbreaking to see her break apart, yet there is nothing you can do, and you sit frozen in your chair.

The spell is broken, no cosmic force controls you anymore, but you do not move, not even when the classroom door slams shut behind Ms. Maryam, and you hear the sound of her high heels clattering against the hallway floor becoming fainter and fainter as she escapes.

* * *

Ms. Maryam does not return for when the classroom begins to fill with the chattering of your classmates, and she does not return when your friends begin to whisper about her absence. Neither does she return when Ms. Serket opens the door and looks inside, but at the very least the P.E. teacher’s appearance makes the room fall silent.

You wish the world would stay that way. Silent. You don’t want to think about what happened, and you don’t want to listen to the school’s speculations of what might have happened with your favourite biology teacher.

In the end, the class is dismissed, and you all leave for your next lesson, and after that lesson passing by you like a blur, you move to lunch. Aradia is prattling on and on with Jade about something you cannot make yourself listen to, walking next to you, and through the noise you hear Sollux snort when Dave runs up from behind and slaps his ass so hard it echoes between the walls.

Ms. Maryam isn’t back the next day either, and when you arrive back home, worried and tired from nerves, you see that Ms. Maryam has blocked you, at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited:  
> Thank you for reading, everyone! And all the nice comments and kudos, it means a lot! heart heart
> 
> Okay, so listen up! I wrote this, and then I realised that I kind of really like where this chapter ended. So I have decided to mark this fic as "Completed", but instead add it to a series ("Forbidden") where I will start a *new* fanfic with the continuation. So know that I want to (and will) continue this story! I really want to explore a lot in this "world". But this doesn't affect y'all much. I'll put out a chapter (that I'll later delete) in this fic as a note telling that I've started the new connected fic! Shrugsies.
> 
> Hope everyone continues to read! It's all juicy (in a non-sexy way), the things I've got planned out in my ol' brain!


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